‘I compare president Magufuli to Jesus Christ’: metaphorical analogy in Tanzanian parliamentary discourse

This article examines strategic deployment of metaphorical analogy in argumentative discourse in the Tanzanian parliament when MPs attempt to support or attack a political action in the most effective manner. Data for the present article were collected from a corpus of the Tanzanian parliamentary Ha...

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Main Author: Brighton Msagalla
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2024-12-01
Series:Cogent Arts & Humanities
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Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2024.2438469
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author Brighton Msagalla
author_facet Brighton Msagalla
author_sort Brighton Msagalla
collection DOAJ
description This article examines strategic deployment of metaphorical analogy in argumentative discourse in the Tanzanian parliament when MPs attempt to support or attack a political action in the most effective manner. Data for the present article were collected from a corpus of the Tanzanian parliamentary Hansard transcripts in Kiswahili. The actual data selected for analysis include four debate segments from the annual parliamentary debates on the speeches by the then Finance Minister, Dr Philip Mpango, and the then Minister of State (Union), Ms Samia Suluhu Hassan. The data are analysed based on the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, incorporating insights from Garssen and Kienpointner’s (2011) versions of analogy argumentation. The findings indicate that most instances of strategic metaphorical analogy in Tanzanian parliamentary argumentation do not satisfy the dialectical norms of reasonableness and they are thus fallacious from the perspective of pragma-dialectics. Nonetheless, there are some more or less plausible uses of MPs’ strategic metaphorical analogy; Tanzanian MPs deploy strategic metaphorical analogy to support a political action or challenge a certain state of affair such as the structure of the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Metaphor research in parliamentary discourse could be extended to other types of data sets from the same parliament or another African parliament.
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spelling doaj-art-e12f12dc746643b88d9fb80e390a85e82025-08-20T02:39:32ZengTaylor & Francis GroupCogent Arts & Humanities2331-19832024-12-0111110.1080/23311983.2024.2438469‘I compare president Magufuli to Jesus Christ’: metaphorical analogy in Tanzanian parliamentary discourseBrighton Msagalla0Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, TanzaniaThis article examines strategic deployment of metaphorical analogy in argumentative discourse in the Tanzanian parliament when MPs attempt to support or attack a political action in the most effective manner. Data for the present article were collected from a corpus of the Tanzanian parliamentary Hansard transcripts in Kiswahili. The actual data selected for analysis include four debate segments from the annual parliamentary debates on the speeches by the then Finance Minister, Dr Philip Mpango, and the then Minister of State (Union), Ms Samia Suluhu Hassan. The data are analysed based on the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, incorporating insights from Garssen and Kienpointner’s (2011) versions of analogy argumentation. The findings indicate that most instances of strategic metaphorical analogy in Tanzanian parliamentary argumentation do not satisfy the dialectical norms of reasonableness and they are thus fallacious from the perspective of pragma-dialectics. Nonetheless, there are some more or less plausible uses of MPs’ strategic metaphorical analogy; Tanzanian MPs deploy strategic metaphorical analogy to support a political action or challenge a certain state of affair such as the structure of the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Metaphor research in parliamentary discourse could be extended to other types of data sets from the same parliament or another African parliament.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2024.2438469Analogy argumentationdialectical reasonablenessmetaphormetaphorical analogypragma-dialecticsrhetorical effectiveness
spellingShingle Brighton Msagalla
‘I compare president Magufuli to Jesus Christ’: metaphorical analogy in Tanzanian parliamentary discourse
Cogent Arts & Humanities
Analogy argumentation
dialectical reasonableness
metaphor
metaphorical analogy
pragma-dialectics
rhetorical effectiveness
title ‘I compare president Magufuli to Jesus Christ’: metaphorical analogy in Tanzanian parliamentary discourse
title_full ‘I compare president Magufuli to Jesus Christ’: metaphorical analogy in Tanzanian parliamentary discourse
title_fullStr ‘I compare president Magufuli to Jesus Christ’: metaphorical analogy in Tanzanian parliamentary discourse
title_full_unstemmed ‘I compare president Magufuli to Jesus Christ’: metaphorical analogy in Tanzanian parliamentary discourse
title_short ‘I compare president Magufuli to Jesus Christ’: metaphorical analogy in Tanzanian parliamentary discourse
title_sort i compare president magufuli to jesus christ metaphorical analogy in tanzanian parliamentary discourse
topic Analogy argumentation
dialectical reasonableness
metaphor
metaphorical analogy
pragma-dialectics
rhetorical effectiveness
url https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2024.2438469
work_keys_str_mv AT brightonmsagalla icomparepresidentmagufulitojesuschristmetaphoricalanalogyintanzanianparliamentarydiscourse